Tag: sexworkers

It seems strange looking backwards, to think that my journey as a ‘Client of Escorts’ has clear and distinct stages. Some relatively identifiable transitions and noticeably different periods. As I reflected on my journey in preparation for this unusual blog article, I felt great joy, but also rather profound sadness. Thinking about these phases is in many ways a personal meditation on the extreme highs and lows of my journey.

I am not suggesting that these stages apply to every client that sees multiple escorts and is active over an extended period. It is just what happened to me, so far, along the pathway of a two year adventure.

The Beginning – Discovery Stage

I have written previously on how I began as a client, especially in the article ‘Becoming A Client’. Here I am talking in a less personal and more collective sense. A reflection on phases. Beginning with my first six-months as a client of the Escort industry. I don’t know how to explain this stage without sharing some numbers. Something that I have avoided in this blog until now, but my personal actions and the clarity of these stages, needs some explanation and some detail.

Over the first six-months, I met twelve Escorts. By the end of that first six-months, the three that I had connected with the most, I had met ten, eight and seven times respectively. Yes, I was hooked early and I did have a lot of bookings. I was careful in research back then, taking a long time to choose who I wanted to see. I selected in a slow and considered process, from a combination of online profiles and close observation of what these Escorts seemed to be like on social media.

I chose well. I was also infatuated with the Escorts that I met. It was such an exciting change from the lonely years that predated this journey. I liked pretty much all of the Escorts that I met, and I wanted to keep seeing all of them. I was trying to keep a growing number of connections open, and progress the strengthening connection with each of these different but amazing women. By the end of six-months, the only way that I could keep doing this, was to make more frequent bookings.

I was starting to realise that I couldn’t meet many new people and still keep seeing the Escorts that I had already met. As the first six-months came to an end, I came to my first sad realisation. This discovery dynamic of meeting new people, while continuing to see others I had met as well, just couldn’t keep going in the same way. It is pretty simple maths really, but who wants to consider maths in this type of emotional situation.

There is some change that comes with time in any case. Out of the first twelve Escorts that I met, four have since retired from the industry. In another two cases, the Escort is based somewhere that I don’t get to travel to very often, and as a result, they were single booking encounters. In three other cases, some of which you may have already read about on my blog, our individual connection ended. Often the ‘endings’ were not particularly pleasant. They never ended ‘within a booking’, but in the messages, complexity and communication spaces that sit in between these fantasy moments.

In fact the three ‘Escort relationships’ I have had that ended the most awkwardly, all started within this ‘beginning period’ and then ended in the next stage of my journey. I had fourteen, thirteen and eleven bookings with these three lovely Escorts. Even today, although the various reasons for ending contact were all appropriate, I still miss all three of these intimate connections. The adventures of those first six months were so new and rich with experience, it is hard not to reflect, remember and sometimes miss the sheer newness of that period. I think it was some sort of awakening – it was certainly a period of personal discovery and enjoyment for me.

Three of the wonderful Escorts from this first phase, I am still privileged to continue to book today. The number of total bookings with each of them is climbing, and it is amazing to be building on a connection that includes a lengthening history together. They have been with me as I have moved through these phases and it is hard not to view these connections as friendships, because they feel like deep, intimate and beautiful friendships. After all, they have weathered my changing phases and still agree to see me. They are deeply important women to me. Each in their own way, they have changed me, supported me, loved me, and given my whole journey a continuity that I would be lost without. The beauty in these relationships also protects me in darker moments, and when confronted with some of the less positive aspects of this industry.

The Explosion – Experience Stage

A lot of my blog articles talk about this stage. After all, I didn’t start bloging until I had been a client for over a year, so I was in the later part of this second period when I started to write. Articles like ‘Addicted to Escorts’ are probably a good illustration of this period of wanting to ‘experience it all’. That ‘kid in a candy store’ dynamic has its own set of issues, and I wrote articles like ‘Single Booking Sadness’ and ‘What Went Wrong’ when I was dealing with no longer being able to make repeat bookings with every wonderful Escort that I met.

I am not going to say how many Escorts I met during this period, that is a level of private revelation that I’m not ready to open up to at this stage. What I can say, is that I met a number of amazing women, that had they been bookings in the ‘Discovery Phase’, I would most likely have seen them on more occasions than I ultimately did. With some of these bookings, I think back to the Escort and our one or two bookings with great fondness, and have wondered many times, if I had met them at the start, or now, not while I was in a phase of expanding my experiences, would things have been different. I believe they would. Sometimes it isn’t about ‘who you meet’, it is just as critically about ‘when you meet’. I certainly met some Escorts at the wrong time.

Despite the challenge of trying to balance seeing established regulars with a rush of new first time experiences, I still met some Escorts that I continue to see today. Some are close companions that I have seen on a significant number of occasions. I guess the point that I’m trying to make here, is that a growing regular connection was just ‘less likely’ to start with a client who was going through this crazy expansion period. During this stage, there was an element of ‘loving the thrill’ as much as ‘loving the individuals’.

A lot of the ‘angst’ in my early blog articles came from contradictory emotions that emerged during this stage. A sort of battle between the emotions of desiring experience, learning and discovery, in a tension and conflict with emotions that are about the specific personal connections between two people. In some cases the individual connections got collateral damage from the bigger journey, self-discovery and overall adventure that was happening with me at the time.

The Equilibrium – Settling Stage

More recently, I have come to find some form of equilibrium. I don’t see that many new Escorts that I haven’t met before any longer. It happens, occasionally I want that ‘first-meeting’ adrenaline and thrill again. The chance of meeting another close connection. It happens. Recently I have met a few Escorts that I am thrilled to be getting to know and seeing again. If I hadn’t still had the occasional new booking, I would have missed out on meeting some of the Escorts that I adore. The reality however is that this happens slowly, over a longer period of time, and largely as someone else retires or the connection closes for some other reason with a longer established companion.

Overall I have less bookings, most of them are with people that I feel I have come to know quite well, and I feel that they know something about me too. It is a stage that also has its challenges. It is hard not to fall at least partially in love with someone who you desperately want to stay in your life. Some of the articles like ‘Loving An Escort’ and ‘Staying In The Moment’, talk about the challenges of ‘keeping it about the booking’, when there is a growing interpersonal connection and a person (or people) that you (and I mean of course me) are thinking about regularly. Sneaking into your consciousness and even into your dreams.

With these regular connections, there are songs, smells, places and other triggers that re-make the connection at random times. So it is fine to say, ‘keep it to the booking’, but my mind has a way of filling in the ‘in-between’ places as well. I have found in this more recent phase, the phase that I believe I am still currently in, that the ‘Post-Booking Melancholy’ can be profound and deep. These wonderful women have entered my soul and although I can ‘keep it to the booking’, and respect boundaries and honour the connection, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that is a challenge. It is challenging because there really is a form of love that lives in this space.

Future Stages

I don’t know what else is to come. As I wrote in ‘Changed Man’ recently, there are other sources of changes and forces on my life outside of this journey and inside it as well. I know that other Escorts that I am close to will retire at some point. I know that ‘buying moments’ is unlikely to remain my primary manner of sexual intimacy forever. So there will be other stages, I just don’t know what they are yet. Maybe a different sort of equilibrium, maybe a decline phase, or maybe an extended ‘hiatus’ or ‘gap’. I don’t know. Many of you who read my blog have been clients for much longer than me. Maybe you would like to comment on your own phases. Have you been, gone, come back. Or do you see things very differently to me.

Perhaps if you are at the start, in that wonderful period of discovery. Then the one bit of bad news, or good news, is that the one constant is that things will change. People come into your life and they go out of it. I feel like I have formed some emotional ‘scar tissue’ from having strong feelings, then loss, and then other new strong feelings. There is a pervasive sadness that builds and grows over time, but it is the price of the adventure, the dark contrast to the lightness of amazing memories and experiences. I can’t give up the sadness, because it is the garden that all these amazing experience are growing within. There is no going back, and there is no way in hell that I would ever want to.

For every companion that I have met, I hope that some of this makes sense to you in the way that it does to me. You have all had a profound impact on me, that has made me a better person, and these connections and experiences are still shaping me into an even better man.

To my three companions that remain from the very beginning, I really don’t know how you have stuck with me through this journey. You know that I love you, and I want to say thank you once again!

Thank you as always for your readership. I would love to hear your experiences, your stages and your opinions. To those companions still with me, I truly and deeply thank you for continuing to let me share moments together with you.

So far in my journey as a client of escorts, I have five real regrets. Things that given another opportunity I would do differently. That isn’t bad given how many amazing experiences this adventure has given me. My biggest train-wreck, was the Sydney, Guns and Roses concert of February 2017. Strap in, it really is a train-wreck!

This is a complicated tale, it taught me a lot of lessons, it still rears it’s ugly head more than six-months later – it is the disaster that keeps on giving! Yet it all started so innocently, with no indication of the mess that would eventually unfold.

Not In This Lifetime

I was in an Uber on the way to see a comedy performance at the Sydney Comedy Club with one of my closest companions and we were talking about music. At the same moment, we both mentioned that tickets to Guns & Roses, ‘not in this lifetime’ concert in Sydney had just gone on sale that day. Snap! One of those serendipitous moments. I looked at her quizzically, and asked ‘how does a young woman list a band from my youth as one of her favorite performing acts?’. She went on to describe to me the level of her love for Guns & Roses, it was captivating to hear her passion.

So in what seemed like more perfect timing, while stuck in Sydney traffic, I logged on to the ticket site and purchased four VIP section tickets to the show. A show that was over six-months in the future and told my wonderful companion that two of those tickets were hers to use however she wished, as a future Christmas and Birthday gift. She was happy, I was happy, and we were both looking forward to seeing Guns & Roses in the New Year – not as a booking but as a gift. Two separate pairs of tickets. My companion was going to take a friend of hers, another Guns & Roses fan, and I was going to take a childhood friend of mine, who I knew was also obsessed with the band.

Patience

The tickets took a long time to be delivered, in fact they did not arrive until early in the New Year. I think my long-time companion had started to think I would never ‘pony-up’ with the promised tickets. Well as soon as they arrived, I did, and it was wonderful to see the expression of joy on her face when I handed them over. I made it clear again that there we ‘no strings’ attached, and checked with my companion that her ‘non-working’ guest for the concert was going to be fine knowing that one of her clients, was going to be there alongside them. She said it was perfectly fine, no issue at all.

As the concert approached, I got ‘cold-feet’ about bringing one of my old ‘real-life’ friends and having to effectively ‘come-out’ as a client of escorts. I am sure he would have been fine, but as you know, people who don’t know the industry, often change their views about us upon learning about our secret lives. I decided I would either go alone or invite another escort to accompany me. I checked if that would be fine with my original companion. She said it would be stupid for me to go alone and that not only would she have no issue with me bringing another escort, she felt that it would be the best idea. True or not, she made me feel that she would be completely comfortable, and was going to be wholly focused on the concert in any case. So I decided to make a booking out of the remaining fourth ticket.

Think About You

The first person I asked was another regular companion of mine. She was always wonderfully direct with her opinions and I’ll never forget her response, it needs the profanity left in for effect: “I fucking hate Guns and Roses, fat Axl can suck a dog’s dick for all I care”. To which I said, “So I assume that’s a no”. Her reply, “assume what you want, but I am not going”. So I went further afield, and asked a Melbourne regular companion of mine to come up to Sydney with me. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to come to Sydney at that time due to other commitments, but suggested another escort that I hadn’t met as she knew she was a Guns and Roses fan.

I made the request, but then found out that she was now based in Adelaide and not Sydney and the logistics of flight, accommodation, and the fact that it would have been a ‘first meeting’ proved too difficult and I suggested it wouldn’t be workable. So with all of this unexpected difficulty happening all at roughly the same time, I made two big mistakes. Firstly I made a public Twitter post to see if anyone wanted to ‘make a booking out of the concert ticket’, and secondly I sent three private messages (PMs) to escorts that I was close to, to see if they were interested. I did this all in a moment of madness, not sitting back and thinking about what might and probably would happen with this unusual and ill-considered turn of events. Well of course you can guess … it all blew up in my face.

Welcome To The Jungle

So the public post was pure stupidity on my part. Who takes an escort to a rock concert as a first booking, hardly the environment for ‘getting to know each other’. Of course I didn’t think about that before the 140-character disaster was out in public as a Tweet. There were a number of responses. Some telling me I was a fool. Others accusing me of creating competition for a booking. Some asking to come along and some very nice legitimate approaches from escorts who were Guns and Roses fans. Later I would meet two of the escorts who made kind and legitimate approaches, and I had lovely bookings with each of them. I also managed to create a few waves and some other people who took offense at the whole thing. Some of whom have still not forgiven my mistake, even after all of this time and even though it had nothing to do with them.

Worse that that, were the private messages. I think my brain had taken the day off that day. After the ‘Axl can suck a dog’s dick’ response and the difficulty in gaining interest from some other close contacts, I assumed that it was unlikely that any of the three escorts I sent private messages to would want to, or be able to go with me to the concert. Of course what do they say about assumptions? Well of course two wonderful escorts that I already had a strong connection with were able to go, and they responded to what they assumed was a single invitation. Ironically at almost exactly the same moment. Yes, you are right, it was stupid … I had seriously fucked up.

Ain’t It Fun

I took the response from the person I thought my original gift recipient might get along with best, not that there was much in it, and then tried to explain my mistake to the escort that I had to ‘let down’ with bad news. It didn’t go well. She was offended, felt that I had embarrassed and belittled her and not respected our connection and her professional reputation. I tried to eat humble pie and apologize, I had stuffed up after all, however she took it far worse than I imagined even given my large error of judgment. She demanded that I bring a specific gift to our next booking that was the same value as the ticket. I said that I wouldn’t be doing that, as although I agreed that I had made a mistake, I wasn’t going to be told to bring a gift to a booking.

That was the beginning of the end for our client-escort relationship. Conversations about our next booking got worse. She asked for a deposit for the first time blaming my ‘flakiness’ for needing it. I knew it was about the concert and in the end I cancelled our next planned booking and paid a cancellation fee instead. This companion and I had a significant journey together, I liked her (and still like her) a lot, but it doesn’t take a lot to damage the ‘fantasy’ and break a client-escort connection. I had ‘loaded the gun’ with my stupid mistake and my companion wasn’t going to let me off the hook – eventually pulling the trigger. The first private casualty of this story, added to the public damage that I had already caused myself. I still miss her and our time together.

Paradise City

The day of the concert arrived. My wonderful companion turned up for lunch at Cafe Sydney in the most beautiful, sexy and largely see-through dress. Spoiling me and distracting a lot of male (and female) guests at the restaurant. It was a stinking hot day in Sydney, 40-degrees, and the open deck at Cafe Sydney doesn’t cope well with that sort of heat. We both sweltered in the heat, but had a great time, enjoying cold champagne, seafood and lots of laughs over our predicament and the evening ahead. We retired to the Shangri La Hotel for a couple of hours of fun in a much cooler environment, looking out over a beautiful Sydney harbour on a warm summer’s day. It was a magnificent lunch-time booking, a great time after a number of previously great moments together.

We prepared to head over to the concert, but got caught up in more conversations and some more drinking. In the end, with heavy traffic also slowing us down, we only arrived at our amazing vantage point, at the front of one of the VIP areas, as the first Guns and Roses song was drawing to a close. Caught up in the ‘booking’ part of the afternoon, we arrived late to the supposed key event of the day – the Sydney Guns and Roses concert. Not surprisingly my earlier companion and her friend had been there early, soaking up the environment and the support act, and upon our arrival greeted me with: “OMG, trust you to be late to the concert, glad you finally made it”. Or at least it was something like that, it was too loud with the starting second song for me to know for sure what she said.

The concert was great. Ironically, a song-by-song recap of the concert isn’t the purpose of this article. At the end, the four of us walked out together and then tried to find an Uber to take us back to the Sydney CBD. That was a forty-minute saga of wandering around Homebush and trying to find a place to meet up with a not very helpful Uber driver in a precinct where most of the streets were closed to traffic. Finally we got in a car, that dropped myself and my companion for the concert in Sydney, and then took my earlier companion and her guest on to their destination. It was weird to be on a booking with one companion while observing another being out with her friend in public. I don’t recommend that as a good dynamic, it makes for some uncomfortable moments.

Nightrain

It was late. My companion agreed to allow me to collect some things I had left at her in-call and spend a bit of time having some drinks and unwinding. I agreed to leave the minute that she told me to go. It was not an intimate moment together, it was a lot of talking by two tired but hyped-up people after a loud rock concert and a wonderful afternoon. As happens in the early hours of the morning, time passes at a different rate and by the time my companion said, you had better get going, it was close to 3am. I walked back to my hotel and sent a thank you message and got a brief and equally pleasant one back, saying that my lovely companion had enjoyed the lunch, concert and our time together.

The next morning, I woke up to a new additional message. It accused me of ‘short-changing’ her, stating that the envelope had $300 less than expected and my long, late conversation with her had also cost her a morning booking. The message was that I now owed a further $800 for the lost income and overstay. It was a very different tone to the night before and all of our other conversations, and it caught me completely by surprise. I had been to the bank and put the whole withdrawal into the envelope, so I couldn’t understand (and still don’t understand) how it could have been short, unless the bank short-changed me, I dropped some of the money, or something else happened during the evening. It was certainly not intentional and I was completely devastated – I am not that guy. I was upset with this message, however I took it on face value and immediately paid the $1,100 that I had been asked to pay.

I am not going into my reasons here, but although my companion was entitled to ask for what she did, I felt that it was unfair for some private reasons. So although I paid the additional amount, it diminished the whole day for me and the way it was handled also impacted upon my previously positive relationship with this companion. I miss her, I respect her, she is a wonderful, highly regarded and successful escort and a lovely person, but it ended our connection and I have not seen or spoken with her since. So in the end, even my companion for the concert was a casualty from this rolling disaster.

Don’t Cry

So at least two wonderful escorts now dislike me, and my journey of meetings with them ended. One as a result of declining their acceptance of the invitation, and the other with overstaying and payment confusion. A number of people who showed interest in the Twitter post were left with a bad perception of me. An even greater number watched the train-wreck unfold online and some of them felt that it was such a great sin by a client that they remind me still six-months later. Even my closest companion’s ‘non-working’ guest for the evening, her friend, while we were wandering around Homebush after the concert asked her in a quiet voice that I overheard … “is he a dick?”. Those words, that question, has echoed in my mind many times since.

Firstly, I wonder if my companion thought on that question herself? I’ve wondered what her true perception of me was. Am I ‘a dick’ to even my closest escort companions? I’ve also thought more specifically about that evening and the surrounding events. It wasn’t my finest hour. I got carried away with the “I have tix” mentality and over-valued the gift that I gave to my wonderful companion – I should have bought her separate tickets and not even been there in attendance with her. It took away from the generosity and thankfulness that I wanted to show to her for all the amazing things that she had done for me. I was the old-guy cramping her style.

I put it out on Twitter in a thoughtless manner. I did not give enough consideration to other escorts that I was already seeing and who might really appreciate the invitation. I hurt a regular companion and I overstayed with another. I was a dick. I never intended to hurt anyone, but I did. I could have been so much better than I was. Of course when you hurt people you care about, you really end up hurting yourself. My regrets are for the people I know, like, care about and were there or otherwise involved.

Out Ta Get Me

The people I don’t give a toss about are the self-rightous bystanders who love to attack one of the few active clients on social media who talks about their journey. The same people who complain when they are misunderstood, not cut slack themselves by others, or slighted by clients, other workers or society at large. If you can’t see the hypocrisy in attacking me for something that was harmless to you, a story that you have no idea about what really happened, or use as some excuse for accusing me of even worse (perceived and untrue) behaviours, then I no longer care. Here is the real story from my perspective. The story of a flawed client, who makes mistakes and often doesn’t know the consequences of experiences that I am having for the first time. The public mistakes of a client who is trying to do the right thing, but not always succeeding.

This whole saga was rich with lessons and saddened with consequences. Good bye to the wonderful people I met and lost as a consequence of my mistakes with this concert. I still value our time together, I miss you and I wish you well. I would change things about this period if I could, but like all things in life, the lessons are also valuable and I’m not sure I should ‘give them back’ even if I could.

One In a Million

I still feel like I am so lucky even to have the experiences that don’t go so well. To have the companions that have stuck with me, despite sometimes ‘being a dick’, well they are one-in-a-million, and they have made my journey one-in-a-million too.

Thank you again for reading. As you can probably expect, I am nervous about this piece, I don’t come out looking so great and I am probably just giving more ammunition to those who already like to take a swipe. My only request, keep any guess work and judgement on others involved private. This is my story and my version of events.

About this blog

I don't speak for anyone but myself and my personal journey as an Australian client of sexworkers.
You won't find names, secrets or any identifiable or intimate details. This is just the journey of one lonely and uninteresting client. The stories are real and so are the emotions, thoughts and comments.
Client voices are rare, but that doesn't mean this will be interesting - that's for you to decide. If you don't like what you read, then leave.